To put the differences between Russia and US into perspective (from a Canadian)... I live in Kansas, I do not fear for my life, no matter what I say. I will not go anywhere near Russia at the moment because I fear that something I say will result in my death or detention (and subsequent death).

Bush may be a more warmongering leader than Putin. But Bush will eventually leave office... Putin will only leave feet first.

Inspirational propaganda based artwork is no more a reason to like Putin than getting a hard-on for snuff films is an excuse for murder.

Inspirational propaganda based artwork is no more a reason to like Putin than getting a hard-on for snuff films is an excuse for murder.

I think you're trying to say that me liking drawn pictures of a murderer meant to coerce the human mind is like jerking off to a video of someone being raped and murdered.

Then shut your comic books. Break your TV and cut up all DVDs that don't feature Zach Braff. There's people getting hurt in them. And that's like being okay with people actually getting hurt. Especially Red Son. HE SHOOTS HIMSELF IN HIS HEAD THAT RUSSIAN MAN!

Just because I like Muhammad Ali doesn't mean I approve of beating up people for money and prizes.

For the record, Putin and I are not close. I don't write his name in the margins of my Algebra homework and draw hearts around it. I like pictures and words and videos. Propaganda is an art form of it's own. Shame on it for being successful.

1. Iran's supposed anti-semitism is largely western propaganda. (For starters, if they were that keen to kill Jews they might start with the tens of thousands of Jews living IN Iran.)

2. Russia has a large and extremely violent Neo-Nazi movement which is regularly involved in the murder of Jews; Muslims; homosexuals; and Asian and African immigrants. Putin has done nothing to rein them in and most of them are enthusiastic supporters of his regime.

I suppose I should've been a little more specific. I was referring to the differences between Putin and Ahmadinejad, not Russia and Iran. Ahmadinejad being publicly vocal about wanting to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, Putin being a little less so about his own racial proclivities.

Anyway, it's interesting to me that other Westerners see a victimized Russian citizenry, despite the fact that a good portion of Russia's people support Putin's strong arm. It's not like it's unanimous support... I know... but it's not country-wide riotous dissent either. Rather than just condemn him as this black-hearted evil tyrant, it is exciting to me to see how a man like this attains the support of his people, secures his power, and carves out a major presence on the world stage, grows the balls to deliberately reject the will of American foreign policy, and not appear afraid to back it up.

You've got that right, Ellis. But when it comes to Bush, who doesn't? It seems like Bush is only in it for the immediate power and wealth, but Putin has his shit together. Delegation of power, and who you delegate to, speaks volumes for the leadership.

When Putin got into a war with Muslim extremists in Chechneya it made him much more popular. If you are going to have a violent and evil leader it is nice if they are at least competent.

I am in total agreement with Kosmopolit when it comes to Iranian versus Russian antisemitism. In the US there is no difference between opposing Israel's bombing in Lebanon and being a neonazi. If any country is going to make a first strike using nukes it will almost certainly be Israel as Pakistan and India (the former first choice)seem to have more serious internal problems.

Putin scares the crap out of me.

I love propaganda art myself. I think most comic book fans do because it is very similar. Powerful simple and hopefully very emotionally charged art is good stuff.I posted a commie one on the red son thread so here is a classic brit one.<img src="http://<a href="http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=7038344" target="_blank"><img src="http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/11/31020314530.jpg" alt="Click to enlarge"></a>" alt="GET TOUGH!" />

Putin is one of those leaders where you know something is cooking in that little bald head of his, and you know whatever it is is way more clever than most of us can figure out. That the worst kind of evil villian, the one who you begrudgingly admire his conviction, and the fact that he's not just the the guy with the most nukes and the nicest teeth. I can see myself in a few decades, strapped to a bunch of other liberal-minded saps, lugging giant stone blocks in the snow to erect a massive sculpture of him. I'll be getting whipped by cyber-KGB agents, all the while thinking "Damn, that fucker got me good."

The stretch to make Russia a cartoonishly evil nation in the west and abroad over the years has been far more laboured than the easier targets of the past. You couldn't have made a better cartoon Hitler than the real Hitler. Its a lot harder for people today to think of Russia as any more than a nation that once got its ass kicked, but the propaganda we see coming out of there can be taken two ways. One, as it is, materials ment to get everyone in the nation thinking the same way, and two, stunning visuals made (often by force) by the countires best artists. Regardless of the intended message behind them, there is no denying that some of it is beautiful stuff, and lets us know that its good to keep informed of what other countires are currently pissed off at. You never know, it might be you.

"I suppose I should've been a little more specific. I was referring to the differences between Putin and Ahmadinejad, not Russia and Iran. Ahmadinejad being publicly vocal about wanting to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, Putin being a little less so about his own racial proclivities."

"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."

Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently laid out the case this way: "The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that 'this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,' just as the Shah's regime in Iran had vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The 'page of time' phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon."

Mr. Steele added that neither Khomeini nor Mr. Ahmadinejad suggested that Israel's "vanishing" was imminent or that Iran would be involved in bringing it about. "But the propaganda damage was done," he wrote, "and Western hawks bracket the Iranian president with Hitler as though he wants to exterminate Jews.

Ahmadinejad is crazy, he's also a virtually powerless stooge who only got the job as President because the haredliners purged all the liberal and moderate candidates and the Iranians chose to vote for the guy who wasn't corrupt and wasn't part of the clerical establishment.

The Expediency Council, which can override the acts of the President and the Parliament if they contradict the wishes of the Supreme Leader, has vetoed more of his actions than of all previous Iranian Presidents combined. In local elections and in elections for the Assembly of Experts (the council of religious experts which will elect the next Supreme Leader) Ahmedinajad's candidates lost overwhelmingly.

His Holocaust conference (which he claimed wasn't about the physical reality of the Holocaust which he accepts but about it's alleged abuse by Israel) got a couple of hundred attendees - most westerners - and was picketed by thousands of Iranians who risked jail to protest the conference. (Meanwhile millions more Iranians were sitting at home watching "Zero Point Turn" on state TV. That's the historic drama about an Iranian Muslim trying to save his French Jewish lover from the Nazis in WWII-era Paris.)

We certainly don't have free speech when it comes to the holocaust any more than some guy in the middle east can bad talk Muhammad.Personally I think making holocaust deniers speech ilegal gives it far more credibility than it would have if we made it legal and just lumped it in with the other cranks.

That's interesting, though, it does seem a little on the nice-side w/r/t to the man's position. Didn't he make this comment during the World without Zionism protest type deal against Israel? I mean, he's also said stuff like "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," and also "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury." Maybe he didn't. This is all from CNN, and I don't speak Persian. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/

My point though, earlier, and at the moment, is that it seems fair to say he'd like to see the whole nation of Israel gone, it seems like it's for some kind of crazy religious reason, whereas Putin a bit more coolly intellectual, his motivation a bit easier to understand.

Ahmadinejad isn't crazy. In fact, I think he, Hugo Chavez, and George Bush all attended the Happy Retard Drunken Narcotized Public Rhetoric Academy of Topeka, Kansas given the common threads in their jingoistic bullshit.

As for Putin, Russia, Iran and who the US should grapple with, let me tell you something...

The Communists were keenly aware of the zero sum game of the Cold War. The Party had its own checks and balances, and there was a plurality to it, in a closed, elitist kind of way.

The autocracy Putin is building is about a trillion times scarier than the religious zeal of Iran's public mouthpiece. Because there is, frankly, something amiss in the Russian gene pool. Chromosomes that control restraint, mercy, tolerance, and compassion are either missing or grossly mutated. An angry, white-label-vodka-swilling Russian from Bensonhurst scares the runny piss out of me FAR more than Iranian rhetoric. I've heard stories from Jews from Isfahan about uncles disappearing in the middle of the night, aunties being raped for not being attended by men in the streets, and police beatings that left grandfathers and great uncles in wheelchairs. They pale in comparison to my man Boris's stories about growing up in rural Russia. Those stories fuck me up.

@Kosmopolit: Yeah, I grew up half a block from the fence of Tinker Air Force Base, during the days of everyone from Gromyko all the way back to Podgorny (I was 13 when Brezhnev died.) So... yeah, we had those conversations, too. I finally concluded that if it ever came to nukes, I was going to go outside and try to catch one. "I got it! I got it!"

I live next to Warren (ironic name eh?) Air Force base, which is the CnC for most of the United State's ICBMs. There are still several dozen active missile silos sited in a 250-mile radius around me. So if worse comes to worst, there won't be a one of my atoms still attached to any of the others.

I would agree Ahmadinejad is pretty smart. I saw his speech at the un awhile back (courtesy of Fox News, no less). And he laid out, plain and simple why the rest of the world hates us(America) and how we (The victors of WWII) treat other countires inferior, and gave a basic idea of what needs to change. It was all really nice, just like when Bill Cosby comes out and says some real shit about the black community.

Its just too bad that he's a dictator who opposes basic freedom and human rights, so it all fell on deaf ears.

Oh yeah, then he basically said he would share his nuclear secrets with any other third world county who wanted them...

Not that i think he would, but he's totally making himself into the leader of those we oppress.